1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to networking systems and, more particularly, to shared network resources.
2. Description of the Related Art
Networked computer systems are typically connected to a network using some type of network interface. The type of interface varies depending on the network protocol. For example, in an Ethernet network, a computer system or processing node may connect to the network using a network interface card (NIC). The NIC may be assigned a unique medium access control (MAC) address that identifies that NIC to all the other computer systems in the world, that may be connected to the network. In a conventional system, each processing node may have its own NIC, and thus its own network port.
In computer systems that include a large number of processing nodes such as, for example, server systems that have a large number of blade processing units in each chassis, the component count of the resources used to access the network can get quite large. Accordingly, the costs associated the networking components may also be high, especially for some of the newer standards such as 10Gigabit Ethernet, for example. This may be especially true since each of the processing units may typically only use a fraction of the bandwidth that a 10GE link can provide. Additional drawbacks associated with large networked systems include the large amount of rack space that must be dedicated to cabling, network port connectors, and the like, and the mechanical issues and mean time between failure (MTBF) for these components.